Rose Rosetree
asked
Rachel Lance:
First of all, I'm so impressed, having read this here on Goodreads about In the Waves: "It's also the story of Rachel Lance's single-minded obsession spanning three years, the story of the extreme highs and lows in her quest to find all the puzzle pieces of the Hunley." MY QUESTION (If not too personal) What gave you the strength to overcome the "personal and private obstacles" and finish this book?
Rachel Lance
Hi! I'm sorry for the delay in responding, but I took a short break from social media platforms for personal reasons.
That's not too personal at all! To be honest, the reason I kept going was that I didn't feel like I had much choice. I had invested five years of my life in this PhD program and the blast data was the last thing I needed to finish. If the experimental data refuted my theory, that would still be fine and I could still publish it as a negative result and use that to graduate, but I needed to measure SOMETHING successfully so that I could write and defend my doctoral thesis.
In my opinion, the most important trait a scientist can have is perseverence. Being able to plow through all those obstacles and keep going has served me well since as a sicentist, during the challenges that have accompanied almost every experiment since. Life always happens!
That's not too personal at all! To be honest, the reason I kept going was that I didn't feel like I had much choice. I had invested five years of my life in this PhD program and the blast data was the last thing I needed to finish. If the experimental data refuted my theory, that would still be fine and I could still publish it as a negative result and use that to graduate, but I needed to measure SOMETHING successfully so that I could write and defend my doctoral thesis.
In my opinion, the most important trait a scientist can have is perseverence. Being able to plow through all those obstacles and keep going has served me well since as a sicentist, during the challenges that have accompanied almost every experiment since. Life always happens!
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Nov 06, 2023 01:11PM · flag